It is imperative for authors to build successful writing careers. Having a writing community, either online or offline, is a good way of boosting a writing career. There are three reasons why you should have a writing community:
For objectivity: It is almost impossible for you to be objective about your own work. You might think the best or even, the worst of it while it might not be correct but a writing community will give you appropriate feedbacks as to how your work is. If it is perfect, the way it is, if there is still something wrong with the manuscript, what exactly is wrong with it etc. are what a writing community will let you know. A writing community will give you a real and truthful evaluation. Your writing community needs to be made up of variety of people as just one person will just give a singular opinion but many people will give a view of what needs to be done (if any) to make the work a complete, successful work.
For continuous learning: Learning never stops. There is always a need to learn more. If your writing community are a group of serious-minded, then, they are also aspiring to learn more by attending seminars, conferences and workshops which they will recommend to others in their community, in which you are a part of. They can also introduce you to important people that you need such as publishers, publicists, podcasters, editors, agents etc.
For publishing: Your writing community might step in to help if your manuscript keeps getting rejected by publishers. Even if the writing community is not going to help publish the work, they act as a strong backbone and pillar to rely on during this period. They encourage each other to keep submitting manuscripts and to not give up.
After you now know why you should have a writing community, you need to know where to meet or locate your writing community. The following are ways of meeting your writing community:
Workshops: Writing workshops are important ways of meeting people in your writing community as those that attend are mostly writers and publishers. These people can also help introduce you to other helpful people.
Writer’s conferences: The people that attend these conferences are people that are already established writers and can help grow your writing community
Writer’s social meetings: Going out to meet a group of writers in your community will definitely help your writing community as almost everybody in attendance will be a writer.
Critique groups: There are already established groups that you can join either online or offline. Find the critique group that fits you and your kind of writing, not all groups are for you but even these ones can introduce you to people that can be part of your community.
Mutual friends: You can meet people that will encourage and support you through your mutual friends. They can also help promote your work.
